Where and how these armies fought are alike-thanks to the poor descriptive powers of the chroniclers-obscure. We know that the fight was in the district of Clontarf, at present represented by the Dublin suburb of that name; but we know nothing more. When the last man who could have pointed out the battlefield to his son died without doing so, it was forgotten. Now when we speak of Clontarf we can speak only in generalities.
      Sitric's overseas allies joined him in Dublin on Palm Sunday, 1014, or a little before that. The Leinster army came up about the same time. Their opponents, Malachy's and Murchad's men, soon appeared. Murchad's force, which was accompanied by Brian Boru, was less a detachment that had been sent off to raid Leinster behind Maelmora's back.
      The Dublin area was enemy territory for both Munstermen and Meathmen, and they fell to plundering the rich district between the town and Howth on the north side of the river Liffey. To prevent further depredations, and judging it to be a favourable moment to show fight, Maelmora and his Norse allies marched against their enemies on the morning of Good Friday. They came out from the little town, crossed the Liffey and its tributary the Tolka, and entered the district of Clontarf. That the Norsemen and Leinstermen went this far, and that the battle took place east of the Tolka seem almost certain.
      Somewhere beyond the reclaimed area of the present north side docks-where the Belfast trains run north-eastward out of Amiens Street station, cross the Howth Road, and gather speed above the tops of the houses-on flat ground within sight of Dublin, Brian's army under Murchad met their advancing enemies-Brian's army alone. Malachy's Meathmen, although they had co-operated with their Munster allies up to this, now stood aloof.
      Why? What sudden insult had been offered Malachy? Or perhaps he had, during all those years since he stood aside and saw Brian made High King in his place, dissembled a fierce hatred of his rival. Was this his revenge ? Or, since in the end the Munstermen won without his aid, are we to believe that they did not need it now, and that they preferred to fight alone? We shall never know. This is a matter of personalities that the chroniclers have not explained.
      The battle was a bloody struggle of men who fought on foot. From what we know of the warfare of the time we can visualise it as a clash of two lines of closely packed forces with the best men, the champions and leaders, in front and the meaner folk scrambling and pushing behind. There was then no science of war; there was no ability to manoeuvre, nor appreciation that more than blows was necessary for victory. Opponents were slung out in tightly packed lines of battle, their shields held close, one to the other, in long 'shield walls' from the slight shelter of which men hacked and stabbed at their enemies to the limit of their strength and courage.
      According to the Irish account of Clontarf and the events of the time which has been translated under the title The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, Brian's army was in a 'battle phalanx, compact, huge, disciplined', and the men stood so close together in the lines on either side as they faced one another that a four horsed chariot could be driven on their heads from one flank to the other. The Norse Saga of Burnt Njal says that both armies were drawn up in battle array. Both records mention banners. It is claimed that the Irish had three score and ten of them, of many colours; the Saga says that the Norse banners were borne before their 'mid battle', or centre. These banners may or may not have been flags. It is possible that they were, like Harold's standard as shown in the Bayeux Tapestry, actual figures of dragons, birds or other creatures.
      Although the details are scanty, the evidence suggests a tripartite arrangement of forces that was common to both armies, an arrangement of centre, or main battle, and two wings; that is, the universal method of drawing up fighting forces that was in use down the centuries. The Norse chronicler, who omits the Leinstermen from his scheme, says that Sigurd led the 'mid battle', Brodar one wing and Sitric the other. Opposite these were Brian's grandson Turlough in the centre and two Norse allies of the Irish, Wolf the Quarrelsome and Ospak, one on either wing. The Irish accounts speak of three lines, one behind the other, on either side. On their side the Dál Chais were in front, the remainder of the Munstermen behind them, and the Connachtmen in a third formation, presumably behind that again. Brian's Norse allies, mentioned also by the Irish, were, according to this description, formed on a wing. The Irish say that their enemies placed Maelmora's overseas allies in front, the Dublinmen behind them, and the Leinstermen in a third line.
      Once begun, the fighting was continued from high tide to high tide, through the day. It was a conflict that was 'wounding, noisy, bloody, crimsoned, terrible, fierce, quarrelsome'-the chroniclers, rising to the occasion, pile on the expletives. Hour by hour the warriors clashed and drew off to draw breath, to rest their arms, to rearrange their front-clashed and drew off, and then fell on again, swaying and stumbling.
      The wings, says the Saga, fell on one another, 'and there was a very hard fight'. Individuals were outstanding. Brotar 'went through the host of the foe and felled all the foremost that stood there', until he met Wolf, who struck him down three times ant send him flying into the near-by wood of Tomar. Turlough, Brian's grandson, brought on a struggle around Sigurd's standard. He killed the standard-bearer, and when another man took up the banner 'there was again a hard fight'. He too was killed, 'and so on one after the other all who stood near him'. Sigurd called upon Thorstein, son of Hall of the Side, to bear the banner, but when he was about to take it Asmund the White cried, 'Don't bear the banner, for all they who bear it get their death!' Then Sigurd called on Hrafn the Red, but his answer was 'Bear thine own devil thyself!' Soon Sigurd, his banner under his cloak, was pierced through with a spear and killed.
      Much of this may be no more than the romance of the story tellers and saga-men, the fictitious element intruded on the basic record of facts; but the predominance of individual champions over the rest, which was part of the warfare of the age, must be factual. The Norsemen, because of their superior armour and weapons, and because fighting was second nature to them, may in this way have had an advantage, man for man, over all but the best of their Irish opponents. They were well equipped. They wore byrnies, or mail shirts of interlinked iron rings, and carried circular shields, and their weapons were axes, swords, spears and bows. The short-hafted, wide-bladed axes, the weapons of the Viking galleys, could be grasped with both hands to add weight to their blows; they must have been as terrible in a mêlée on land as they were on shipboard in a sea fight. And the Norse were renowned swordsmen, with a mystic regard for their straight, broad-bladed, often beautifully ornamented swords.

From Irish Battles - A Military History of Ireland by G.A.Hayes-McCoy. Click here for more information on the book.

Further reading: A Little History of Ireland by Martin Wallace with illustrations by Ian McCullough. Click here for more information on the book.

more
back